


satellite [down a hole]

by shirozora



Series: that escalated quickly [2]
Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types, Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, M/M, continuing the barista AU by branching out into Transformers territory, pretending Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon never happened, this is all tumblr's fault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-14
Updated: 2012-11-14
Packaged: 2017-11-18 15:37:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirozora/pseuds/shirozora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark should start getting paid to deal with this shit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	satellite [down a hole]

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this amazing thing that showed up unannounced in my ask](http://shirozora.tumblr.com/post/35599940117/anonymous-asked-you-one-night-two-boys-named).
> 
> I am going by [this MCU timeline](http://www.filmbuffonline.com/FBOLNewsreel/wordpress/2012/05/13/a-marvel-cinematic-universe-timeline-2-0/) and pretending the events of the first Transformers movie took place in 2009 for continuity's sake. I'm also pretending Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon never happened. 
> 
> This was supposed to be a 1000 words long. Sigh.

When he thinks about it S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't pay him enough to deal with their business, not that he needs the money. It's the thought that counts, and one he's throwing at Director Fury once he washes his hands of this mess. This... car-shaped mess, including the gaping hole in the garage door, the burnt rubber on the street, and the agent pursuing the yellow Camaro on a motorcycle that was not there a second ago.

"I need a drink after this," Tony Stark mutters, and runs down the steps to yank a case out of his Audi.

* * *

What woke him up that morning wasn't his alarm, JARVIS, or Pepper.

"Mr. Stark."

He cracks an eye open, spots Director Fury, and promptly rolls over on his other side. Pepper's not in bed. This dream is taking a turn for the worse.

"I suggest you get your ass out of bed right now. Need you to look into something on our behalf."

"Really?" Tony grumbles into his pillow. "What do you think my egotistical selfish ass can do that your agents can't?"

Instead of answering Fury walks out of his room, pausing at the door to say, "If you're not in the kitchen in five I'm dragging you out there myself. JARVIS, this room needs some sunshine."

Tony burrows under his pillow as his bedroom lights up like a sunny day on the beach, swearing.

* * *

He stumbles into his kitchen to find Fury peeling one of the mandarins from the fruit bowl Pepper bought last week and an agent sitting at the bar, perusing a datapad. Tony ignores them and makes a beeline for the espresso machine. While it brews his morning caffeine he loudly says, "Isn't your boyfriend the kid that kept breaking into the S.H.I.E.L.D. servers?"

"He's under strict orders not to do so just because you're his current employer and asked real nice," Fury replies, tossing the peel into the sink. "Agent Bradley?"

The agent slides the datapad over and Tony picks it up only to quirk an eyebrow at its contents. "O-kay, so cheaply produced YouTube videos are now high on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s threat list. Something you're not telling me?"

"Ever heard of Mission City?" Fury asks.

"... only that it was almost wiped off the map because of a 'training exercise gone wrong'."

"That training exercise is a bunch of alien robots having a battle royale in the middle of a large city behind my back - in 2009."

"A bunch of alien robots having a battle royale," Tony echoes. Now he can actually pick out the combatants tearing through streets and skyscrapers. He's still convinced this is very convincing or very badly done CG. "You're joking."

"Not even a little bit," Fury says. "After the Chitauri this should be a walk in the park. While I go deal with the gag order and figure out who the hell hid this shit from me you're going with Agent Bradley to find their leader and tell it S.H.I.E.L.D. wants to make a deal."

"Me? What deal? And what if I said nope, sorry, still busy putting my tower back together?"

Fury just gives him a Look. "Well you're not putting it back together from the other side of the country. And your consulting hours started... three minutes ago. You're on the clock, Mr. Stark. Get on it."

* * *

"You know, my Hulkbuster armor is far from ready," Tony says. "And judging by those reports these... N.B.E.s are, what? Seventeen feet tall? Twenty? Thirty, even?"

"We're negotiating, not provoking," Bradley says flatly. "You had no problem facing down the Chitauri."

"Different story. So, say they get... provoked. What's to stop them from tearing through half of L.A.? Tell me it's not just us. It is way too early in the day for me to deal with giant killer alien robots."

"We have agents on standby," Bradley says. "But an EMP blast should do the trick. Get off here."

At the bottom of the ramp, car signalling left, Tony says, "Don't you guys want to know about the loopholes in your firewall?"

"You're not talking to him," Bradley replies stiffly. 

"If I hadn't found out about Phase 2-"

"Which ultimately had no impact on the events on the Helicarrier and in Manhattan."

"You know how easy it was to hack into the servers-"

" _No._ "

The air suddenly smells burnt and metallic, and Tony is confident that for a second the agent's eyes flash blue-white. 

"Okay, fine. So who exactly are we looking for?"

* * *

To his credit Samuel Witwicky doesn't freak out when he finds Tony Stark and a suspicious-looking government agent on his doorstep.

"Uh, can I help you?" he asks awkwardly. Or nervously.

"Yes, you can," Tony says, flashing him a winning smile. "Ever been to Mission City?"

Probably not the best opening line. Witwicky's eyes widen comically as he stutters, "Uh, I have to - water on the stove, need to - need to turn it off."

He slams the door in Tony's face and Bradley very quietly says, " _Shit_."

Another door bangs open and Witwicky yells, "Bumblebee!"

What Tony doesn't expect to happen - a bright yellow Camaro bursting through the garage door and screeching to a stop halfway down the driveway. He realizes that nobody's behind the wheel at the same time that the passenger door opens and Witwicky dives in. Bradley yells for the kid to stop and whips out his sharp Frisbee disk while the car burns rubber fleeing the house with the gaping hole in its garage.

"What is this, Knight Rider?"

"Get your suit on, Stark," Bradley says as he runs down the lawn to the sidewalk. Is Tony imagining things or is a helmet assembling around his head? "I need eyes in the sky."

"You brought me here to consult, not play Iron..."

Either he's still having a really bad dream or a full-sized motorcycle materialized out of thin air... or as soon as Bradley pulled some kind of baton-looking thing apart. In another time he'd love to get his hands all over the sleek, glossy design and take it apart to figure out how the hell it defies the laws of physics. Now? He's running down to his car and grabbing his case while the agent takes off after the Camaro.

"Should've flown back to Manhattan yesterday," he grumbles as he kicks the case open and activates it.

* * *

By the time JARVIS locates and homes in on Bradley's electronic signal - and Tony plans to hack into S.H.I.E.L.D. to read up on the agent's file because the guy's a walking mystery - the Camaro and the agent have been joined by a black GMC Topkick truck and an offensively reflective yellow-green Hummer 2 rescue vehicle. The three vehicles give off the same signal but it's undecipherable.

 _I cannot match the signal to any database, sir,_ JARVIS says unhelpfully. 

"Awesome," Tony says dryly. "Link me to Bradley. Hey, I hope your plan isn't to chase the car until it runs out of gas."

Bradley's voice comes back a bit tinny. "It won't. We planned a route to the train yard, away from civilians. Just follow me."

"And what about the cars flanking you? Are they even cars?"

"Really ought to pay attention to the case files, Stark," the agent says and abruptly puts the brakes on his motorcycle. 

The Topkick attempts to follow him but Bradley just swerves around it and inches up on the Camaro's right side, nudging it into taking a left at the next intersection. Tony wonders how they'd manage to avoid colliding with other vehicles and running over pedastrians until he notices the flashing sirens on the Hummer's top.

Oh. Clever. 

The pursuit lasts about ten minutes until they hit the grungy part of town, the kind filled with warehouses, rusting factories, and a mass of railroad tracks, some filled with boxcars. Tony drops down in altitude, tracking everyone's movements - the Camaro screeches as it makes a sharp one-eighty to face Bradley and its door flings open, throwing Witwicky out onto the gray-brown dirt. Then the Camaro _disassembles and reassembles itself into a bipedal robot_ and Tony is just not here to deal with this. 

"Tell me I'm hallucinating," he says as the robot's right hand forms a cannon.

 _I believe you're clear-headed and sober, sir,_ JARVIS provides.

The Camaro fires a pulse of energy at Bradley, who leaps off his motorcycle and lands on the roof of the nearest boxcar. He whips out his glowing Frisbees - "Seriously, where is his _gun_?" "I heard that, Stark." - and shifts into a defensive position. Tony spots the other two pursuants weaving through the boxcars while _transforming into robots_ ; one has a chainsaw and the other wields two bigger cannons. 

"Not liking our odds here-"

"We're not here to fight."

The Topkick looks trigger-happy, aiming both of its guns at Bradley. 

"Might wanna tell that to the big guy over there-"

Which is when the Topkick fires them at the agent, who gracefully somersaults above the fireballs and flings a disk at it at the same time. It grazes the Topkick's shoulder plates, sparking and burning a thin red-hot line into the glossy black coat, and flies back into Bradley's right hand.

"Ironhide!" the Hummer snaps.

"And they have names," Tony says. "Also, they _talk_."

"It scratched me," Ironhide the Topkick says and fires at Bradley again. 

Bradley ducks under the fireballs and leaps onto Ironhide while a boxcar behind him explodes, spraying chunks of wood and metal everywhere. He scales the robot easily, rebalancing himself whenever Ironhide tries to shake him off, and jumps onto the nearest boxcar to regain the high ground. That doesn't last long; it explodes under his feet when Ironhide blasts it and he tumbles to the ground.

"Any time now, Stark," Bradley says and dances out of the Hummer's reach.

"Oh boy," Tony says and deploys flares as he flies in. "Thought we were negotiating, not provoking."

"Change of plans." Bradley dances out of the way of the Camaro's cannon fire and scales an intact boxcar. "Stick to defense. They'll stop when they realize we're not here to attack."

"Sure, but just so you know, I'm not packing enough flares for this job," he replies. Ironhide recovers the fastest of the three and swings its cannons around to Tony with a frustrated roar. "Hey! We come in peace!"

"Yeah, right," Ironhide growls and fires. 

Tony avoids it easily but gets caught by a pulse of energy from the Camaro. He crashes into the side of the abandoned train station. He blasts the rubble off of him, coughing as damp dust seeps into the suit's vents, and then blasts back out through the crumbling roof. 

_Sir, there is a fourth,_ JARVIS informs and shows Tony its location at the perimeter of the train yard.

"Right, time to end this party before we end up leveling half this town," Tony says, noting the growing destruction around the three robots and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. "Bradley, didn't you say something about an EMP blast?"

"Then you'll probably want to get the hell away before I drop you out of the sky," Bradley replies as he swings up onto a half-destroyed train car. 

The agent counts down while Tony rockets straight up into the sky. He notices a huge red and blue semi parked in front of the warehouse closest to the tracks as he goes up. It shifts and moves backward down the street, and Tony realizes that it saw him and guessed what he was flying away from.

"... three... two.... one."

Contrary to popular belief an electromagnetic pulse is not visible. Tony hears it in the brief static before he reconnects with JARVIS and the suit. He sees it when the three robots collapse and Bradley staggers, almost falling off his perch. The semi is fine, though, and quickly rolls forward. Tony flies down to the trainyard and catches Bradley before he falls, carrying the agent down to the ground. Bradley burns feverishly hot and Tony wonders just how the EMP affected him. 

"Optimus!" Witwicky hollers.

Tony forgot the kid was still there. Then JARVIS pings him to the new presence with the same unreadable signal and whirls around to see the semi transform into a towering robot with the most impressive frown on his face... plates. Tony arms his flares just in case they need to make a quick getaway, because there's no way he's facing a robot standing at least thirty feet high wearing this suit while babysitting an incapacitated agent.

"Who are you?" the semi demands. "How do you know about us?"

"I'm guessing you don't surf or watch TV much," Tony says. Luckily the other three robots are still out. He hefts Bradley's weight against him. "I'm Iron Man. This is... an agent from S.H.I.E.L.D. We come in peace."

"You took out three of my fellow Autobots," the semi says. "I doubt that."

"We tried." Tony points at Ironhide. "He shot first."

"You also nearly leveled a densely populated metropolis," Bradley says quietly, voice muffled by his cracked helmet. He touches something at the back of his neck and the helmet retracts. "You didn't think that'll pick up some attention? Someone's done a good job pretending it never happened but nothing gets past _us_."

"What are you, some kind of secret government organization?" Witwicky says. "We already dealt with that shit, okay? Don't think we forgot what you did to Bee."

"We had nothing to do with Sector Seven, nor will we be anything like it," Bradley replies. Color slowly returns to his face and the faint glowing dots on his suit intensify. "We were sent to negotiate with the leader of the Autobots, not fight."

"I don't believe you," Witwicky says.

"Negotiate what, exactly?" Optimus asks.

"An alliance," Bradley says. "We continue to shield your existence on this planet and you help us protect it from extraterrestrial threats."

"Like the Chitauri."

"Exactly-"

"Wait," Tony interjects. "You know about the Chitauri?"

"Of course," Optimus says. "We spent many... light-years, as your language calls it, searching for the Allspark. We encountered other species on our journey here, one of them being the Chitauri."

"Huh."

Something - or something - groans and the Hummer sits up. "What just happened - Optimus. What are you doing here?"

"Negotiating with our potential allies," Optimus says. "I'd like to talk with your leader and set the terms of this alliance."

"Negotiate?" Ironhide demands while getting up on its feet. "After what they just did-"

"An unfortunate series of miscommunications," Optimus interjects smoothly. "I was observing. They never outright attacked us. I believe it is safe to say this might go better than the last time we interacted with one of this planet's governments."

"Fine." Ironhide turns and shoves a finger in Bradley's face. "Just don't think you can pull something on us and get away with it. You don't want to get on our bad side."

"I'd do what he says," Witwicky says. "Times a hundred."

What Tony would give to shut that kid up.

* * *

Witwicky offers to take them back to his house. Tony hesitates, because there's nothing remotely comfortable about sitting inside a robot that tried to kill you with its pulse cannon five minutes ago, but Bradley manhandles him into the back anyway.

On the fifteen minute ride back Witwicky talks about the day he purchased his first car - Bumblebee, an Autobot scout - and the series of events that culminated in the battle that tore a huge hole into Mission City. Tony watches Bradley annotate S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files on Sam Witwicky, his car, and the three other Autobots: Optimus, Ironhide, and Ratchet the Hummer. There's another one on a Pontiac Solstice named Jazz and an array of military vehicles all bearing less than pleasant names like Barricade, Blackout, and Starscream. 

"Any plans to drag him into S.H.I.E.L.D., too?" Tony mutters while Witwicky starts ranting about Sector Seven's incompetence. 

"He's severely under-qualified," Bradley replies. "His girlfriend, on the other hand, is very savvy with electronics, especially machinery. We might nudge her in your direction."

"Noted. And I'm not a babysitter."

Bradley smirks and adds that to the file on Mikaela Banes.

"You know," Tony says while Bumblebee turns onto the street the Witwicky house is on, "after what I put up with on behalf of Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D., you guys should at least let me _talk_ to him about-"

" _No_."


End file.
